


The End of the Beginning

by Luthien



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-06-24
Updated: 2005-06-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 23:44:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthien/pseuds/Luthien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose has a recurring dream. Or is it a nightmare?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The End of the Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Set just after Episode 1x13 'the Parting of the Ways'.

Rose is lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling. It's nothing like the ceiling of her bedroom at home, this ceiling. The ceiling of the TARDIS. When she was younger, lying on her bed at home, she used to look up at her bedroom ceiling. She knew all the places where the paint her dad had used was starting to peel and flake away, all the places where it was starting to discolour. From her bed, she could just make out the dainty trail of cobwebs that clung to the light fitting - the one with the bulb that was always going on the blink. It was comforting in its shabbiness, that ceiling. Comforting and homey.

This ceiling is nothing like it. Looking up into the depths of the TARDIS ceiling is like looking down into an abyss until you're dizzy. It goes on and on, endless, like time and space itself.

Rose has been looking into the abyss for so long that she no longer knows which way is up. It would be better to close her eyes against it-

No, it wouldn't. It isn't better to close her eyes. It never is. Not any more.

Instead, she drags her gaze down, back into the room, and her eyes light on the wardrobe in the corner, a dark, heavy old-fashioned Earth object, out of place against the futuristic, gleaming white walls.

She found the wardrobe - and the rest of the room - on one of her explorations of the inner corridors of the TARDIS. She'd gone wandering frequently once she'd realised that there was more to the TARDIS than the control room - something that the Doctor had somehow failed to mention until she'd been travelling with him for a while.

She calls it her room, because she found it and she uses it, but it wasn't always hers. The wardrobe and its contents are proof of that. Inside the wardrobe, there is a huge variety of outfits, in many different sizes and styles: Earth garments, some of them, but others she can't identify, as well. A real hodge-podge. One or two remind her of the sorts of ridiculous fashions she's seen her mother and even her grandmother wearing in old photos. Others, long and impractical, like the sorts of things a fairy princess might wear, seem to be from earlier in Earth's history. And then there are the outfits that look as though they've never been near Earth at all. There's one that's a sort of brown leather bikini, only it's not remotely frivolous. It has secret pockets in the lining, and a scabbard for a knife concealed down one side. Rose has no doubt that the owner of that particular get-up was someone who meant business in every single thing she did as she made her way through the world - worlds.

Of course it has to be "worlds", because the owners of the clothes, all these other girls, they all must have travelled with the Doctor once. In the time before, that he avoids mentioning.

In the time before the War. The time before everything changed for him.

The time before Rose.

She turns over and puts out the light, and then she makes herself shut her eyes.

She has the dream again tonight - or what passes for night on board the TARDIS.

She knows it's a dream, sort of, and she knows that she shouldn't follow where it leads, but she can't resist its lure. Everyone has their price, or so that policeman her mum used to go out with once said. The dream knows Rose's price and holds out the promise of it to her. She takes it with both hands, even though there's something more than usually ominous about it this time, a little niggle at the back of her mind trying to warn about where this might end up.

It starts off so comforting and innocent, this dream. It's just like her bedroom at home in that respect. And she's at home in the dream, though she doesn't know how she got back there. All she knows is that she is home, and on the receiving end of a gentle, respectful kiss from Mickey. Nothing unusual there. There've been many kisses like that, all of them as sweet and safe as this one. And as boring.

She barely has time to feel guilty before the dream shifts. She isn't at home now - she doesn't know where she is - but she is still being kissed, though no longer by Mickey. This kiss is exciting, and fun, just like the person who belongs to it. But the look in his eyes is serious as he draws back from her. Just like the last time they shared this kiss.

Captain Jack holds her face in his hands and tells her she's worth fighting for. And then she knows where she is. She's on the Game Station, Satellite Five that was, and Jack is about to go off and-

She hears herself mouthing the same silly, hopeful words as last time, as though everything will be all right. She struggles against it, trying to warn them, but all she can do is stand and watch as Jack cups the Doctor's face and kisses him in turn.

She's still wondering how she feels about that kiss when Jack races off, promising to see them in hell at the end of it all.

What happens next is a golden blur. She feels she should remember it better, but it's as though her mind won't stay still long enough to take in the details of the memory as it slips and slides through the course of events that follow.

She knows there's another kiss to come, though. The one that's as inevitable as it's impossible. Just as before, their lips come together in a perfect, gentle kiss that affirms everything.

But she's greedy, is Rose. The perfect kiss is not enough for her this time. She wants more. She wants passion. And, because this is a dream, she gets what she wants. He lies beneath her, silly smile on his face that gradually turns into something more serious, something more intense, as she rides him, pushing them both onward to the impossible, inevitable conclusion. She leans forward to kiss him, with all the passion that she's kept bottled up inside her, that's been building all this time that they've been travelling together. But before she can touch her lips to his, his neck arches back and his mouth is open, he's grimacing as though he's in agony, just like- just like-

And Rose wakes up screaming, her mind filled with images of the Doctor on fire, burning up, burning until there's nothing of him left, burning until a stranger is standing in his place.

It's a relief when the darkness swallows her, swallows her whole, and takes her into its embrace, to a comforting, quiet endless place that the all-consuming fire can never reach. There are no screams there.

Some time later - Minutes? Hours? Years? - Rose returns from the depths of the abyss, and becomes aware that she is curled up in the middle of the bed, shaking. Gradually, the shudders racking her body recede until she's lying there, quiet, much as she was before she went to sleep.

But she doesn't look over at the wardrobe again; she won't look up at the endless ceiling; and she can't close her eyes, either.

The only option available is to look down at the floor, where her clothes are lying, right where she left them.

She should probably get up and get dressed. She should get up and get the Doctor - the new one - to take the TARDIS back to Satellite Five. They should go back one last time. Just once, to get Jack.

And after that, they need to go forward. You can't spend your life looking back, worrying about what can't be. The Doctor - her Doctor, the real one - showed her that. The Doctor _lived_ that.

She has to go forward now, she has to go on living, like he wanted her to. And she'll do it, yes, she will.

She rolls onto her back and stares up at the ceiling.

She will do it, yes, she will.

Just not quite yet.


End file.
